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The 2014 All-India Research Team: Portfolio Strategy, No. 3: Ridham Desai
Total appearances: 4
Analyst debut: 2011
For a second consecutive year, Morgan Stanley’s Ridham Desai captures the No. 3 position on this list. The researcher has “a commanding sense of broad themes,” attests one fund manager, who cites in particular Desai’s May report, titled “The Next India,” which explored how the country is managing its economy’s transition from a cyclical downturn to a structural upturn — and the potential impacts of this change on equity markets. For his part, Desai notes that “India’s improving macro stability and growth-inflation mix lend themselves to various portfolio themes.” Among the key drivers, he says, will be inflation, government policies, improving corporate balance sheets and international factors. Investors would be wise to prefer “cyclicals over defensives,” he says, and should “stay away from high-beta stocks.” In particular, the strategist recommends overweighting the consumer discretionary, energy, materials and technology sectors and underweighting the consumer staples, health care, industrials and utilities groups.